Ticket to Write: Gun-making history shown at old armory in Springfield

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Jun 23, 2017 at 2:29 PMJun 23, 2017 at 2:29 PM

Steve Stephens More Content Now

Springfield, Massachusetts, native Theodor Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, produced cartoons for the U.S. military during World War II.

The city had a much more direct effect on the war effort as the home of the Springfield Armory.

The armory once inspired a poetry far different from that of Dr. Seuss:

This is the Arsenal.From floor to ceiling, like a huge organ, rise the burnished arms;But from their silent pipes no anthem pealingStartles the villages with strange alarms.

Poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was moved to write these words after visiting the arsenal in 1843 with his wife, who noted how a cabinet full of muskets manufactured there resembled a great pipe organ.

Visitors to the Springfield Armory National Historic Site today can see an “organ of muskets” similar to the one that inspired Longfellow to write his anti-war poem. They’ll also learn about the history of the site, which made small arms for the U.S. military from 1795 until 1968.

During the lifetime of the arsenal, workers went from producing muskets by hand, one piece at a time, to pioneering mass-production techniques that were later copied by other industries nationwide and worldwide.

The site was selected by George Washington, as was another national-armory site at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia). The Harpers Ferry site was destroyed by Federal troops as the Civil War began to keep it from falling into Confederate hands, but the Springfield Armory continued production, churning out weapons that helped the Union win the war.

“The Arsenal of Freedom” continued making military firearms for another century. Although it never produced a Tough-Tufted Prickly Snick-Berry Switch (a weapon of Seussian design), it did churn out millions of M1 rifles, called by Army Gen. George S. Patton “the greatest battle implement ever devised” and carried by U.S. troops before and during World War II.

Eventually, the Defense Department contracted out weapons production to private companies, and the Springfield Armory was closed in 1968.

Today, the National Park visitors center in the historic Main Arsenal building displays the world’s largest collection of historic American military firearms. Visitors also will find exhibits that demonstrate the industrial techniques and equipment used to make weapons throughout the armory’s history.

For more information, call 413-734-8551 or visit www.nps.gov/spar.

— Steve Stephens can be reached at sstephens@dispatch.com or on Twitter @SteveStephens.